Firefox 3.5 Beta 4Release Notes

released April 27th, 2009
This is the sixth development milestone and fourth beta release of Firefox 3.5, the upcoming version of the
Firefox web browser. Please read below for more information.

About this Beta

Firefox 3.5 Beta 4 is the sixth development milestone and fourth beta release of Firefox 3.5,
the next version of the Firefox web browser. While this release is considered to be stable, it is intended for
developers and members of our testing community to use for early evaluation and feedback. Users of the latest released version of Firefox should not expect all of their add-ons
to work properly with this beta.

Check out what’s new, the known issues and frequently asked questions about the latest version of Firefox.
As always, you’re encouraged to tell us what you think, either using this feedback form or by filing a bug in Bugzilla.

What’s New in Firefox 3.5 Beta 4

Firefox 3.5 Beta 4 is based on the Gecko 1.9.1 rendering platform, which has been under
development for the past 10 months. Firefox 3.5 offers many changes over the previous version, supporting
new web technologies, improving performance and ease of use, and adding new features for users:

Improvements to the Gecko layout engine, including speculative parsing for faster content rendering.

Support for new web technologies such as: HTML5 <video> and <audio> elements, downloadable fonts
and other new CSS properties, JavaScript query selectors, HTML5 offline data storage for applications, and SVG
transforms.

System Requirements

Downloading

Mozilla provides Firefox 3.5 Beta 4 for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X in a
variety of languages. You can get the latest version
of Firefox 3.5 Beta 4 here. For builds for other systems and languages not
provided by Mozilla.org, see the Contributed Builds section at the end of this document.

Installing

Please note that installing Firefox 3.5 Beta 4 will not overwrite your
existing installation of Firefox. You won’t lose any of your bookmarks or
browsing history, but some of your extensions and other add-ons might not work
until updates for them are made available.

Uninstalling

You can remove Firefox 3.5 Beta 4 through the Control Panel in the
Start Menu on Windows, by removing the Firefox application on
OS X, or by removing the firefox folder on Linux.

Removing Firefox 3.5 Beta 4 won’t remove your bookmarks, web browsing history,
extensions or other add-ons. This data is stored in your profile
folder, which is located in one of the following locations depending on
your operating system:

Windows Vista

Users\<UserName>\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox

Windows 2000, XP, Server 2003

Documents and Settings\<UserName>\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox

Mac OS X

~/Library/Application Support/Firefox

Linux and Unix systems

~/.mozilla/firefox

Any version of Firefox that you install after removing Firefox 3.5 Beta 4 will
continue to use the data from this profile folder.

Extensions and Themes

Extensions installed under Firefox 3 may be incompatible and/or require updates to work with
Firefox 3.5 Beta 4. Please report any issues to the maintainer of the extension.
When you install Firefox 3.5 Beta 4 all of your Extensions and Themes will be
disabled until Firefox 3.5 Beta 4 determines that either a) they are compatible
with the Firefox 3.5 Beta 4 release or b) there are newer versions available that
are compatible.

Known Issues

This list covers some of the known problems with Firefox 3.5 Beta 4. Please read
this before reporting any new bugs.

Users who run this beta, then downgrade to a previous Firefox
3.5 Alpha or Beta, will be unable to use stored passwords (see
bug 467463)

If you have set your preferences to clear your browsing history every time Firefox
shuts down, it will also clear history when you restart after installing an add-on
or theme. This is unintentional and will be fixed (see bug 487219)

The default settings for clearing your recent history every time Firefox shuts down
now include removing your cookies (see bug 488706)

The "switch text direction" menu item has been removed from the context menu in
locales that use left-to-right reading order languages (see bug 418513)

Microsoft Windows

Pressing enter in the Location Bar will not do anything if you are running AVG SafeSearch
v8.0 or lower. Upgrading AVG SafeSearch fixes the problem (see bug 479095)

Troubleshooting

Poorly designed or incompatible extensions can cause problems with your browser,
including make it crash, slow down page display, etc. If you encounter strange
problems relating to parts of the browser no longer working, the browser not
starting, windows with strange or distorted appearance, degraded performance, etc,
you may be suffering from Extension or Theme trouble.
Restart the browser in Safe Mode. On Windows, start using the "Safe Mode" shortcut created in your
Start menu or by running firefox.exe -safe-mode. On Linux,
start with ./firefox -safe-mode and on Mac OS X, run:

cd /Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/
./firefox-bin -safe-mode

When started in Safe Mode all extensions are disabled and the Default theme is
used. Disable the Extension/Theme that is causing trouble and then start normally.

If you uninstall an extension that is installed with your user profile (i.e.
you installed it from a Web page) and then wish to install it for all user profiles
using the -install-global-extension command line flag, you must restart the
browser once to cleanse the profile extensions datasource of traces of that
extension before installing with the switch. If you do not do this you may end
up with a jammed entry in the Extensions list and will be unable to install
the extension globally.

If you encounter strange problems relating to bookmarks, downloads, window
placement, toolbars, history, or other settings, it is recommended that you try
creating a new profile and attempting to reproduce the problem before filing
bugs. Create a new profile by running Firefox with the -P command line
argument, choose the "Manage Profiles" button and then choose "Create
Profile...". Migrate your settings files (Bookmarks, Saved Passwords, etc) over
one by one, checking each time to see if the problems resurface. If you do
find a particular profile data file is causing a problem, file a bug and attach
the file.

Frequently Asked Questions

What can I do to help?

We need help from developers and the testing community to provide as much
feedback as possible to make Firefox even better. Please read these notes and
the bug filing instructions
before reporting any bugs to Bugzilla. You can
also give us your feedback through this feedback form.

Lots of people. See Help->About Mozilla Firefox, Credits for a list of some of the people who
have contributed to Firefox 3.5 Beta 4.

Where’s the Firefox 3.5 Beta 4 source code?

A tarball of the Firefox 3.5 Beta 4 source code is available for download.
The latest development code can be obtained through Mercurial.
Firefox-specific source is in mozilla-central's "browser", "toolkit",
and "chrome" directories. Please follow the build instructions.

Where is the mail client?

Firefox 3.5 Beta 4 works with whatever mail client is the default on your system.
However, we recommend Mozilla Thunderbird, our
next-generation email client and the perfect complement to Firefox.

Contributed Builds

These are unofficial builds and may be configured differently than the official
Mozilla builds. They may also be optimized and/or tested for specific
platforms. You can browse through the available contributed builds on the
FTP
site.